1567 c/o Brandi Wells

NIGHTSHIRT

His nightshirt twists, pulls tight. It slows him, this goddamn nightshirt. It holds bunches of his flesh back. It traps globs of fat and then his whole body in a slow dreamlike run where he isn’t moving half as fast as he imagines he could.
                    He stumbles.
                    Stumbles again.
                    If only there wasn’t this goddamn nightshirt.
                    He stands up.
                    Stumbles.
                    And then the knife. So much more vicious, more personal than the explosion would have been. The choice is never between fire and ice, but simply run, run, run. Fall and get up. Run.
                    And afterwards, or rather during, the knife.
                    Then stillness. The nightshirt and him, so calm. The way the nightshirt is draped across him suggests a kind of championing on the nightshirt’s part, a kind of honor.